Manorlands, the Sue Ryder cancer-care hospice at Oxenhope, is planning a satellite day-care unit in Skipton.

Hospice staff are seeking land in the town and holding talks with North Yorkshire Health Authority in a bid to win support for the ambitious £450,000 scheme.

The specialist palliative care home has recently appointed Austin Duffy as corporate sponsorship manager. His job is to encourage big business to back the project.

"We already have one big player interested," he says. "We can't reveal the name yet, but they are a Bradford company. It is a very exciting period for us. It's a new chapter in the life of the organisation. We feel it is the way forward.

"We need to find corporate sponsorship to help fund the project. It will be a long-term partnership."

The new unit would provide day-care and specialist home-care nursing for people living in an area stretching from Skipton to Kirkby Lonsdale and covering much of the western Dales area.

The Sue Ryder Home - which has 18 beds - is no longer just a hospice unit based at Oxenhope providing care at Manorlands for terminally ill people, says Mr Duffy.

He points out there has been a big increase in its work in the community. Manorlands provided care in the home and day-care services as well as bereavement support, counselling and support for relatives.

Mr Duffy says the decision to establish a permanent facility in Skipton comes as a result of the success of the outreach unit which has been running in Skipton for about two years

It was originally set up in the Quaker meeting house, but demand has grown so much officials transferred it to a nursing home.

Manorlands Matron Ann Chamberlain says: "For two years we have had a one-day-a-week satellite centre in Skipton, first in the Quaker meeting house and now in a nursing home. We're temporarily in the nursing home but demand has grown so much we need a permanent centre of our own.

"It's a very exciting time for us because we are providing other services in the community. I am very optimistic about the future but at the same time cautious because there is still a long way to go."

Manorlands relies on fund-raising. Last year people gave £312,468 with £358,269 more coming from legacies. Income last year was £1.073,662, but members were told at the recent annual meeting that without the legacies, the organisation would be vulnerable. Total expenditure in 1998 was £907,726.

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